Avenue’s Community Initiatives Team has been partnering with schools to deliver COVID vaccines to our residents. Burbank Middle School’s wrap around specialist, Xiomara Ardon, and her colleagues in partnership with the Houston Health Department were able to host several successful events.

“We are ecstatic about the impact we are making in the community. This initiative has truly been a team effort…We really didn’t know what to expect with the vaccination events but the first event was amazing as we vaccinated over 120 individuals. Our second vaccination event, was also successful bringing in more than 180 individuals to the vaccination site. We understood our zip code had some of the lowest vaccination rates in the community and we immediately started having conversations to see how we could help. Burbank Middle School serves as a community hub and it is also within walking distance of the community. We promoted the vaccination event and we realized it is simply about creating access. Many individuals required assistance filling out applications or in some cases were not tech savvy, our staff jumped in to help. The look of gratitude and feedback from the community is priceless. So many individuals and some of our older population took time to stop and say,  “gracias por lo que hacen”  or in English, “thank you for what you do” or “if there were more people in the world like you all, the world would be a better place”. It is truly a pleasure to be able to serve the community.” (Xiomara Ardon)

This progress in public safety will continue to serve Avenue’s mission as we get back to the work of community leadership and re-launch some of the initiatives and projects that have been taken in new directions since the beginning of the pandemic.